Doorman Wanted

Glenn R. Miller is an author living in Minneapolis. He published Doorman Wanted in 2024. This is a humorous story about a guy named Henry who tries to distance himself from his rich father. His father is rich because he is ruthless in business. Henry's father works in New York so Henry decides he will move to California and help people who are less fortunate than him. When his father dies Henry inherits a ten story apartment building. When he goes to the building to pick up the keys he is not ready to face the fact that he owns the building. He sees a sign on the window about a job opening for a door man so he applies. Henry gets the job as doorman during the day shift. He receives packages for others. He arranges entrance for catering companies when his tenants have parties. The building has a manager but she is quite useless. The evening doorman will do anything to avoid the manager because she is so rude to him. Henry tries to help all the building tenants. He even helps some homeless people who live in Central Park. The story moves along quickly and is very funny. 

 

 

In The Midst Of Winter

 I enjoy reading Isabel Allende's writing. This time I read In The Midst Of Winter which was published in 2015. After a fender bender car accident in New York City, the lives of three immigrants are linked forever. Robert is the one who hit the other car. He is from Brazil and is teaching at a local university. The person driving the car that was struck is Evelyn Ortega, a young undocumented immigrant from Guatemala. Robert gives Evelyn his card with his home address. Later that evening she arrives at his house upset. She stutters and English is not her first language, so he calls the woman who lives in the basement, Lucia, to come up and help him decipher what Evelyn is trying to say. Lucia is a lecturer at his university and she is from Chile. Robert and Lucia decide to help Evelyn with her problem. Along with solving the problem in New York, we learn about their lives growing up in Guatemala, Chile and Brazil. We learn why they immigrated. The story is simply mesmerizing.

 

 

Tell Tale

Jeffrey Archer is the author of the short story collection known as Tell Tale. Two of the stories in this collection were based on a Reader's Digest request to write a story with exactly 100 words in an hour or less. He did a good job on those two stories. A common theme among the stories is irony. I don't want to give away any spoilers. In one story a teacher in England, who visited Dachau as a child, brings his class on the same trip and learns a horrifying fact about his grandfather. In another story a police detective investigates a murder of a mayor in a nearby Italian town. All the people in the town confess to murdering this mayor. It isn't until he gives up the investigation that he learns who actually killed the mayor. These are all good stories. This is a book worth reading.

 

 

The Weird Sisters

Eleanor Brown is an award winning author who wrote The Weird Sisters. Their father is a professor at a college specializing in Shakespeare. He names his three daughters after characters in Shakespeare writings. They live in a college town an hour from New York City. Rose, the eldest daughter, lives in her home town. When she finds out her mother has breast cancer she moves into her family home. Gradually all the daughters move back home. Much of the book is spent analyzing why they left or stayed in their hometown. More time is spent exploring their petty jealousies. I enjoyed the book but I'm not sure I would any of those women as a sister.

 

 

A Clergyman's Daughter

I was in the mood to reread 1984 by George Orwell. So I looked at my library and didn't find that but I did find The Clergyman's Daughter. This book is old, discolored and tattered. This book is so old it still has that envelope with dates indicating when the book was borrowed. October 2, 1982 was the oldest date but it was published in 1935. The story is about a young woman working relentlessly to help her father with his church and his meals. He doesn't appreciate a single thing he does. He is stingy with money. At one time he had a bit of money but gradually lost it by making poor investments. He is grouchy and rude to his parishioners. His daughter, Dorothy, is forever trying to smooth his rough edges.  She is up past midnight working to make costumes for a church play when suddenly she goes missing. A vile woman in the neighborhood who is always telling evil stories about people in the village makes up a story that Dorothy was seen leaving town with a local bachelor who had three bastard children. This isn't true but it created a huge scandal. The clergyman angrily refused to talk to the press so only the false story was in the newspapers. Actually she lost her memory. She was out on the road far from town when she met 3 other people. Together they applied for jobs picking hops. When the hop picking season ended her memory returned. With her wages she wrote letters to her father begging for money to return home. He refused to respond. Eventually she ended up homeless and begging in Trafalgar Square. Eventually she was found my her father's cousin and taken in to work at a school where she was treated unfairly. Eventually a man from  her village arrived. The evil woman who told lies was sued for libel by a banker in town. The evil woman left town. Dorothy returned home to resume her duties with her father. Life for women in the 1800's was tough.

 

 

The Restless Wave

John McCain and Mark Salter are the authors of The Restless Wave: Good Times, Just Causes, Great Fights and Other Appreciations. The book is about the last ten years of his life when he was working in the Senate and running for President against Barack Obama. I don't agree with everything he says politically. I really admired him for standing up to Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld against the use of enhanced interrogation techniques. Enhanced interrogation techniques is a euphemism for torture. Keeping people awake until they hallucinate, keeping them cold or naked, water boarding, and making them keep their bodies in painful positions is torture. He got a lot of push back for his opinion. He was told he would have blood on his hands. Another thing I  liked about him is that he fought for democracy and for human rights. Also, he is willing to admit when he has made a mistake.

 

  

Mighty Red

I found another book written by one of my favorite authors, Louise Erdrich. This one is called The Mighty Red. The story takes place in a North Dakota town along the Red River. This is sugar beet country. One of the main characters is Crystal. During sugar beet season in the fall, the drives semi-trucks of sugar beets to the plant. She has a daughter just graduating from high school named Kismet. The story is about a love triangle with Kismet, Gary (a beet farmer's son), and Hugh (a nerdy home schooled dreamer). The story is also about the soil degradation due to the chemicals used on beet fields. Besides degrading the rich North Dakota soil the chemicals are harmful to bugs, birds, and humans. I totally loved this book.

 

 

 

  

Love Forms

Love Forms is a novel written by Claire Adams. Most of the novel takes place on the island of Trinidad. Later we go on to Venezuela and the United Kingdom.  I enjoyed reading the descriptions of Trinidad and Venezuela. The author wrote lovingly about the towns, big and small, and the beaches and the hills and the roads. The story was sad. Dawn, a sixteen year old girl in Trinidad is the best swimmer among her friends. Her family is wealthier than others and because of that she has few friends. Then comes the daughter of a traveling businessman and suddenly she has a friend. They attend the Mardi Gras parade together. Dawn takes a tourist to the beach to impress her friend. Later, finding out she is pregnant, she is shamed by her parents and her two elder brothers. Her father arranges an illegal trip to Venezuela to live with the nuns until the baby is born. He doesn't share how the journey will go so she is scared as she gets into various cars with strange men. She has to wear a black pillow case over her head in the boat on the way to Venezuela so that officials won't see her teeth or the shine of her eyeballs in the dark. Later, as an adult, she works as a physician in London while caring for her two sons. Once her marriage fails she decides to try and find her daughter. The author does a better job with descriptions of the land than the descriptions of the relationships between people. 

 

 

Bats

 Tonight the Winona bird club had a meeting. Our speaker is a member of the Wisconsin Bat Ambassadors program. She gave an interesting and enthusiastic talk about the bats in Wisconsin which are the same eight species that we have in Minnesota. Four of our bats dwell in caves in the winter and they migrate. Living communally like that makes them more susceptible to disease. The other four species dwell in trees or rock walls. They like to get under the bark or between the stones. She showed us videos of bats using echolocation to find moths at night. The closer they get to the moth the faster they make the echolocation noise. This noise is undetectable to the human ear but it can be heard with an echolocation detection device. Also, the bats don't put the food directly into their mouths. They have a flap of skin between their feet called a uropatagian. Bats use this skin to catch moths or mosquitoes and put them into their mouth. The uropatagian is also used to hold baby bats while they nurse. Bats are very important to our ecosystems.

 

 

Buzz Sting Bite

 I read Buzz Sting Bite which was written by Anne Sverdrup-Thygeson. She is an entomologist living in Norway. She references Norway many times but she also references the United States. To me it felt like she aimed this book at readers from the United States. Her daughter did the chapter illustrations. The book gives an enormous amount of facts but they are written in an entertaining manner. She writes about insects that have ears on their knees, eyes on their penises, and tongues under their feet. I probably won't remember most of what I read but I enjoyed reading it.

 

 

Nosireebob

The snow in Winona is nearly gone except for on the north side of buildings or walls. The sun is warm enough to melt the ice from the concrete. Yet it's still cold enough to keep a shelf of ice above the concrete. One of my all time favorite things to do is to step on that ice shelf and listen to it crack. The sound is SO SATISFYING!

But now I am elderly. I can't afford to fall on concrete. I try to avoid ice. Does that stop me from cracking the ice on the sidewalk? Nosireebob!

 

How Democracies Die

 I have been attending a class every other week at the university on war and peace. I didn't sign up nor pay for the class but I got an email saying the general public was welcome. Initially I wanted to go in order to help myself process the immigrant crisis in our state. Even in Winona three Hmong employees were hauled away. Last week we discussed the situation in Iran and Gaza. One of the people in the group was a professor of physics. He clearly explained how Uranium 235 can be enriched to Uranium 238. The United States enriched Uranium with long underground tunnels in Tennessee. The Uranium is propelled through the pipe slowly and the enriched Uranium gets distilled by going through the long tunnels many times and floating to the top of the pipe. The other way to enrich Uranium is through specially made centrifuges which are hard to come by. Another person in the class said that anytime a country sends that many aircraft carriers and battle ships to an area war is surely to follow. He was right. Earlier in the class a person recommended the book written by Steven Livitsky and Daniel Ziblatt called How Democracies Die: What History Reveals About Our Future. My audio book was 8.5 hours long. These two authors have spent several decades studying the governments around the world and doing research on authoritarianism. They have studied Peru, Venezuela, Ecuador, Chile, Hungary, Turkey and Russia.  Years ago democracies died with a military coup. This is not the case in modern times. Democracies die a slow death. Law and the constitution is attacked. Voting rights are attacked. Legitimacy of elections are attacked. Legitimacy of political opponents are attacked. Violence is tolerated or encouraged. Civil liberties are attacked. In the years before and after the Civil War, mutual toleration was gone. Mutual toleration is the belief that although you disagree with your political opponents are decent, patriotic, and law-abiding citizens. These days it feels like some of us have lost mutual toleration. The arguments made in this book are convincing and depressing. It was published in January, 2018.

 

 

Dwelling

Dwelling is a novel with a hint of magic in it. Written by Emily Hunt Kivel the story starts out with Evie who lives and works in New York City. The city is collapsing. All renters are evicted simultaneously. Evie has no family except a younger sister who is in an insane asylum in Colorado. She puts her stuff in storage in the basement of her apartment house and tries to figure out what to do. She remembers her Mom, before she died, had a sister living in Texas. That sister had a daughter who she thinks is a real estate agent. She decides to fly to Texas and hope for the best. She can work from home so no problem there. She moves to Gulluck. At first she stays in a backyard cottage at her cousin's house. Her cousin is married and has four children. Eventually she finds a place to rent. Odd thing it, the house is shaped like a shoe. People keep bringing shoes for her to repair and she tells them she doesn't know how. Eventually she looses her job. She decides she will go to the community college and take a shoe repair course. This turns out to be her calling. This book had very many funny moments in part because Evie is the queen of making understatements.

 

 

 

And Furthermore

I read Judi Dench's autobiography called And Furthermore. She told the story to a writer who put it in book form. She starts out with her childhood and two older brothers. Then she proceeds to detail every performance from school play to playing "M" in six James Bond movies. I liked her performance in the television series called "As Time Goes By." In it she plays a woman who fell in love before the war. She never got his love letters and ended up marrying someone else. He married someone else too. Her spouse died. He divorced his spouse. Now they meet again, both single, and both a little angry with each other at first. But then they gradually fall in love all over again. According to Judi that series was way more loved in the United States and Australia than it was in the UK. She mentions the series had a fan club that would, on several occasions, fly to New York or London to watch her perform in a play. Most of her book is mentioning the other actors and actresses. She had a running gag with one actor where they handed a gray glove to each other at most inopportune moments. I do like her impish sense of humor.

 

 

 

Oil!

Years and years ago I read Upton Sinclair's novel about the meat packing industry in Chicago called The Jungle. I loved that thick book. I also loved Oil! much more than I thought I would because it wasn't nearly as popular as The Jungle. I admire Upton Sinclair for his writing and also for his activism and his inspiration for us to uncover societal wrongs and do better. This book is about the Teapot Dome Scandal where money bribes to the cabinet of President Harding were made to keep money in oil business executives and to destroy the unions that protect oil workers. The Tea Pot Dome scandal is ranked right up there with the Watergate scandal. I liked the first chapter the best. The first chapter is written in the first person narrative while subsequent chapters are written in the third person narrative. The first chapter is about a little boy and his Dad. Bunny (James Arnold Ross, Jr.) is riding with his father (James Arnold Ross) across tarred roads in southern California on their way to a meeting. His father likes to ride at 50 miles per hour even when the speed limit is 30 miles per hour. His Dad shows Bunny how to avoid the speed traps. The story happens after 1900. The love between Bunny and his Dad is very evident. Bunny admires his businessman father. The father is rich and divorced. He has an older daughter who is a society girl, his mother (Bunny's grandmother), and his aunt to help him raise his children. Rather than Bunny going to school, Bunny accompanies Dad on all business. A tutor is hired to help Bunny with his studies between meetings.  When Bunny and his Dad arrive at the meeting in California, Bunny takes a seat on the windowsill while his father tries to convince a room full of landowners to sign a contract with his oil company so he can install oil derricks on their property. Bunny hears a voice of a boy names Paul through the window. Paul convinces Bunny to open the kitchen door so he can grab some food from his aunt who owns the house. Paul convinces Bunny that he will only take what is necessary and will pay his aunt back in the future. To me this sounded like a scam but it turns out that Paul is honest and true. This makes a huge impact on Bunny. As Bunny matures and finishes college, the contrast between Dad and Paul is evident. To his father's dismay Bunny chooses to admire Paul more than his father. As it turns out his father is part of the "good old boys" system of bribes and corruption. What a great story!  

 

 

The Best American Short Stories 2013

Elizabeth Strout is the editor of The Best American Short Stories 2013. One  of the stories, written by Junot Diaz, is one I had read before. I enjoy his writing. This story is called "Miss Lora." If Miss Lora was a real person she'd hopefully be arrested for child abuse because there is no way a high school teacher should be taking advantage of a student. Another story I read before was "Train" by Alice Munro. A veteran is on the train coming home when he impulsively decides not to return home by jumping off the train. In nearly every story there is someone who is broken. One of the stories I really liked was called "The Best Is Yet To Come." This is a story about a young farm wife in New England at the turn of the previous century. She is trying to get by after the death of their baby. She is inporportionately cheered by the visit of the farm wife at the next farm. There are a lot of great stories in this book.

 

 

Oryx And Crake

Oryx and Crake is a dystopian novel that the author, Margaret Atwood, describes as speculative fiction. I think she means a story like this could happen in the future. The story is about a boy named Jimmy. As an adult he is known as Snowman. One day his mother disappears and for years government officials repeatedly question him about her whereabouts. Jimmy lives with his Dad who is a scientist. In this society, each company builds living quarters for their employees to keep them safe and isolated from the crumbling world elsewhere. Jimmy is an average student. One day a new student named Glenn starts at his high school. Jimmy and Glenn spend much time together playing video games and smoking weed. On his extinction video game Glenn uses the handle Crake and Jimmy uses Snowman.  Glenn is a top notch student. After high school Jimmy gets into an art school where he learns how to write advertising. Glenn becomes a genetic pharmaceutical engineer. Later, after they are working for a few years,, Glenn asks Jimmy to help him write advertising for the new humanoid he has designed called Crakers. Things go wrong at this job and Snowman is left starving and barely surviving out of the compound in some trees next to the sea with some Crakers. Two more stories follow this one but I am going to have to pace myself. Maybe I will read one a year. This is an incredibly possible and sad story. 

 

The Book Of Records

 Madeleine Thien is the author of The Book Of Records. This book is speculative fiction. The main characters are Lina and her father who are waiting to migrate at a place next to the sea. They meet other travelers including a poet, a philosopher, and a scientist. Lina's father brought three books on their journey. The three people they meet are featured in the book "The Great Lives Of Voyagers." The three people lived in different centuries and in different parts of the world. The book is heavy with philosophy and, frankly, most of that went over my head. This was definitely not easy reading.  I am glad I read it on Libby because Libby has a feature where you can highlight a word you don't know and the definition comes up.

 

 

Florida

 Lauren Groff is the author of a book of short stories called Florida. All the stories are set in various parts of Florida, from the Everglades to the panhandle. Each story is different. Most of the stories mention snakes but panthers and alligators are also in some. Bad, crime ridden neighborhoods are mentioned in several stories accompanied by women plagued by insomnia who don't feel safe going out to walk or run at night. Most of the stories have bad storms. One has a hurricane. The writing is very precise which made for a captivating read.

 

 

Every Tom, Dick And Harry

 Eleanor Lipman is the author of the comedic novel called Every Tom, Dick, And Harry. In this story a young adult named Emma is taking over her parent's business so they can retire on the Atlantic coast, several hours away. Her parents helped clear out estates. They sold antiques and valuable pieces of art for a 40% commission. Now this is Emma's job. Plus she moved into their house. Her father was a teacher at the local school. He mentions that another teacher from the same school, a guy named Frank, needs a place to live after his wife died so Emma takes him in too.  Her new boarder turns out to be a super helpful house mate. He cooks. He cleans. He gives good advice.  Frank is great at advertising. Together Emma and Frank are succeeding at estate sales. In the book we learn about the other main characters in town such as the mayor, the chief of police, the chief of police's mother, Franks wife and step-daughters, and the owner of a large estate in a tony neighborhood. This large estate was a bed and breakfast on one level and a brothel on another letter. This book was very funny but slightly unbelievable.

 

 

 

 

Roof Walker

Susan Power is an author living in Saint Paul, Minnesota. A couple of years ago I read her book The Grass Dancer. Now I read another book called Roof Walker. This book is about Native Americans living in Chicago for work because their reservation in North Dakota did not have many opportunities for employment. Many of the stories included native spiritual beliefs. Most of the stories mentioned the conflict between living in Chicago and living the native way. I liked the book because each story had a strong (get it done!) female character.

 

 

 

 

The Red House

 Mark Haddon is the author of the great novel called The Curious Of The Dog In The Night-Time. I loved that book. He also wrote The Red House which I just finished reading and I liked that one too. This book takes place in current time. Two semi-estranged siblings get together for a week at a house in the countryside. The older brother, Richard, a wealthy doctor invites his sister, Angela. Richard is newly married and has a step-daughter. Angela has her husband and her three children. The story is told  by all eight characters. We learn about grudges, resentments, hopes and problems. Plus we learn about the red house and who cooks what for dinner each night. After reading this delightful book I felt like I had been on vacation in the red house too.

 

 

Not Something I Would Do

Today the weather was warm and sunny. This is the third day in a row where we had temperatures over 50 degrees Fahrenheit. As I walked along the shore I saw a group of four seven year old boys standing on the ice next to the shore having the times of their lives. They had sticks and were pushing into the ice but staying within 5 feet of shore. I suppose the danger added to their fun. Their joy made me smile. Walking further along the lake I saw four groups of anglers sitting out on the ice fishing. To the top left you can see sugar loaf bluff. To the right of that are the ice cliffs. Over the past few days the ice has looked darker and darker. They were really far out there. How can they relax in such danger? I circled their locations. This is not something I would do. 

 

 

The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle And Flying Club

The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle And Flying Club is an historical fiction novel written by Helen Simonson. I have read one other book by her called The Summer Before the War. This book takes place in the fictional town of Hazelbourne which is on the coast. The book starts at Armistice Day (ending of World War One) and for a year after that. Constance is a main character. She grew up on a farm. Her father died when she was young. Her mother recently passed away from the flu. Now she works as a farm manager. Her brother was the sole inheritor of the farm. Constance needs to make money. She has a degree in accounting but employers are expected to save those jobs for men. With the help of her mother's friend, she gets a job helping an older lady recover from the flu. Together they travel to a hotel in Hazelbourne to take in the sea air and recuperate. Another guest at the hotel asks Constance for help. This guest, Poppy, grew up wealthy and she is something of a maverick. She likes to wear pants and to drive motorcycles. As the year progresses Poppy and Candace become close friends. What struck me about this book is the cultural restrictions placed on certain segments of society at that time. Some filling stations would not sell gas to young women on motorcycles. A German waiter at the hotel is discriminated against because of his heritage. He was put in a concentration camp on the Isle of Mann during the war. Even a year after the war has ended certain people in town treat him very badly. I enjoyed this story much more than I thought I would. There was an abundance of drama and intrigue.

 

 

Above The Line

I read Shirley MacLaine's book called Above The Line, My "Wild Oats" Adventure. The story is partly about a movie she made on the Canary Islands with Jessica Lange. The movie was called My Wild Oats. The other part of the book is some stream of consciousness rambling about the lost island of Atlantis. She is a much better actress than author. 

 

 

Happy Valentine's Day

 

Tell Me Everything

 I love the writing of Elizabeth Strout. She is so talented in writing about ordinary people living in Maine. I found Tell Me Everything at the library. She has a new one that came out this year called The Things We Never Say. This book had characters I knew from other books such as Olive Kitteridge, Lucy Porter, and the Burgess boys. In this book Bob Burgess has a big role. He is semi-retired as a lawyer but he takes the case to defend a young man accused of killing his mother. The man's mother was a lunch lady at the school and was quite unlikable. The entire book is about relationships, both family and friends. We never know how important we are in the lives of others.

 

Revolutionary War

 Today I joined the "Learning Club" which is a group organized by Winona State and held at the Winona History Museum. Today the topic was the revolutionary war. I was ten minutes early. The very enthusiastic speaker (former botany professor) asked me if I was a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution. I said I wasn't and that my ancestors were immigrants after that (which is true as far as I know). She is a member of DAR and proud of it. She is a distant relative of Thomas Jefferson and proud of that too. She spoke about the resolutions the first European settlers had in this new country which were freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and they were against slavery. She plans to give two more talks in the future.

 

 

Leaving Rollingstone

 I read Kevin Fenton's autobiographical book called Leaving Rollingstone. He was born in 1959 and grew up in Rollingstone which is 11 miles northwest of Winona. He grew up on a farm and was the youngest sibling in his family. His mother was a nurse in Winona. His Dad was a farmer. As a farmer, due to physical disabilities, was not successful as a farmer. Kevin was into rock and roll. His sisters loved to dance and his eldest brother joined the Army. Everybody in town was a Catholic and the only school was a Catholic school. After they lost the farm they moved to Minnesota City. Once his father died and all the other siblings moved out, Kevin and his Mom moved to Winona so she could be closer to work and he could be closer to high school. He floundered as a young adult and made some self-destructive choices. He eventually became an ad man in the big city (Minneapolis). More about this time in his life is implied in his other book, Cyan Magenta Yellow Black. I enjoyed his looking back with nostalgia but also honesty.

 

 

Dakota Project

 Today I attended a seminar at Winona State University in their student center ballroom. I sat with a couple of teachers and one other lady from the community. The teachers were glad to see such a big turnout and that members of the public were in attendance. Six speakers from the Prairie Island area came to speak. One spoke about natural law and inherent rights. He spoke about the 1837 and 1851 treaties. According to the treaties, the town of Winona belongs to the Dakota. After the 1862 uprising, all treaties were abrogated. He also said, and I found this surprising, conservative Supreme Court judge, Neil Gorsuch, has always voted in favor of Native rights. There were about six speakers talking about land rights, land trusts, the environment, social work, art, and community relations. The main message I took away from this three hour session is that Mitakuye Owasin or we are all related.

The Nest

In Cynthia D'Aprix's novel, The Nest, the four siblings of the Plumb Family gather together. Before their father died he set aside some money for them to inherit when the youngest sibling, Melony, turned forty. Thanks to their uncle, George, the nest has developed into a very tidy sum. All the Plumb siblings are looking forward to receiving the nest. Two of the siblings need the nest to escape their present financial difficulties. This meeting takes place when Melony is 39. Their eldest brother, Leo, has not been a responsible son nor brother lately. His irresponsible actions lead to a car crash where a waitress was severely injured. To preserve the reputation of the Plumb family, the nest is used to pay people to keep quiet. I enjoyed the story but honestly the four siblings of the Plumb family are highly self-absorbed and unlikeable with the exception of Bea.

 

 

Blaack Cake

Charmaine Wilkerson is the debut author of Black Cake. In this fiction novel siblings Byron and Benny are reunited after the death of their mother. They had been estranged for 5 years. Their mother leaves them a audio recording with the true story of her identity and life. Byron and Benny had been told lies all their lives. Their mother was also a great cook. For Christmas she made a black cake that had fruit soaked in alcohol all year. The book is full of secrets and betrayals. Byron lives in California and is mapping the ocean floor for science. Benny lives in New York City and is saving so she can open a cafe/coffee shop. Their mother did not grow up in an orphanage in England. Instead she grew up in a beach town on an Caribbean island (probably Jamaica) where she was a champion swimmer.  This book does a nice job while touching many sensitive subjects.

 

 

Ice Park

Winona has an ice park which is part of Sugar Loaf Park. Sugar Loaf is just to the left of this photo. Highway 61 is at the bottom of the hill. Last weekend they had their ice festival. People came from around the country to climb these person made cliffs of ice. Volunteers run hoses off the cliff to form the ice. The ice park is a twenty minute walk from the parking area. I have been up there in the summer but not the winter.

 

Lights Out

Last night I attended an Audubon meeting here in Winona. The topic was light pollution. We watched a 35 minute documentary called Lights Out In Texas. Next we heard from a Winona State Professor who studies astronomy specifically when two objects collide in space. She also knows about light pollution because twenty years ago she had a student who was interested in light pollution in Winona and he also happened to have a pilot license. She showed us pictures of light pollution over the last five decades. Light pollution for the most part is worse. According to her figures, 60 to 80 percent of today's children will never see the Milky Way because of light pollution. Winona State has done much to reduce light pollution. They replaced their outdoor lights with lights that shine only down. Also, the lights go dim unless someone walking by triggers the light to come on fully.  The residential parts of Winona are fairly dark. The lightest places are automotive dealerships and big box stores like Walmart and Target.  According to her, light pollution is better but there is still room for improvement.

 

 

Blue Wave

Yesterday evening I joined Winona Indivisible for a protest march starting at Windom Park. We walked around with signs for 90 minutes. Various commuters either ignored us, waved at us, or beeped their horns in quick succession. My sign read "The blue wave is coming." I liked this home made sign better.

 

 

The Revolving Door Of Life

Alexander McCall Smith is the author of The Revolving Door Of Life. This intermittently hilarious book talks about life in Scotland. Various characters interact with each other. One is a father of two sons, Bertie (age 7) and an infant. His wife goes to Saudi Arabia for a 5 day trip but ends up staying longer. He gets in touch with his mother. His mother now lives is Portugal with her new husband but she is glad to come to her son's house while the wife is away to help. The guy's mother cannot tolerate the wife. When the son went to the airport to pick up his mother, Bertie offered to hold the infant because the infant was less cranky with him. Bertie spots his grandmother's red suitcase coming so he sets the infant down. Father and grandmother do not notice the infant going away on the luggage conveyor belt until after he is behind the scene. That was one hilarious incident. Both Bertie and the infant do better under the care of their grandmother. Another woman on the far side of town is trying to prevent her father from falling into the arms of a Slovakian woman who is after her money. She solves the problem by asking an annoying friend of theirs to tempt the Slovakian woman into an affair.  In between all these hilarious skits are facts about the legends of Scotland. I highly recommend this book.

 

 

Park Avenue

 I read Renee Ahdieh's debut adult novel called Park Avenue. The story is about Jia. Jia's parents owned a Korean bodega in New York City. Jia wants a better life for herself. When a Korean lady lawyer comes into the bodega to buy tea, Jia admires her Birkin leather bag and decides she will be a lawyer and own a Birkin bag too one day. Now Jia is an adult at a prestigious law firm and she just made junior partner. When a senior partner asks for her help with a wealthy Korean family, this is her ticket to make senior partner. What she learns from the Koren Park family is that money cannot buy happiness. Jia rethinks her life's goals and her work/life balance. This was a superficial yet enchanting read.

 

 

The Man Of Many Fathers

I borrowed The Man Of Many Fathers: Life Lessons disguised As A Memoir, written by Roy Wood Jr. from the  library. Although I had never heard of the author before he is a well known writer, producer, actor and comic. He hosted the 2023 White House Correspondents' dinner. He writes about his strict, hard working mother and his mostly absent father. His father was a well known radio personality and civil rights leader in Birmingham, Alabama.  He didn't get into too much trouble as a kid except that one time when he and his friends adapted their leaf races in the stream behind the house. They added burning piles of pine needles on top of the leaves and started a forest fire. The author had an interesting story to tell.

 

 

The First Lie Wins

 Ashley Elston is the author of The First Lie Wins. This is a best selling mystery novel about a con woman named Evie Porter (not her real name). She works for a Mister Smith who gives her jobs to do in various cities in the southern states. Evie is extremely smart and clever and manages to be successful on nearly all her assignments. Although mysteries are not my favorite, this book is paced well, full of action, and all the threads get resolved by the end. 

 

 

The Nickel Boys

 The Nickel Boys is the second Pulitzer Prize that Colson Whitehead won. His first is called The Underground Railroad. This book is set in Florida in the 1960's. The story is about a black youth named Elwood. Elwood lives with his grandmother who is very strict. She won't let him listen to music nor the radio. He can listen to speeches by Martin Luther King, Jr. Elwood is a good kid and a great student. He is admitted entrance to college classes while still in high school. Just before he is to enter his college classes he hitches a ride to another city in Florida. He and the driver are pulled over by police because they are driving a Plymouth. The officer believes no one with their skin color can afford a Plymouth so it must be stolen. Elwood ends up at the Nickel Academy which is a reform school full of corruption and cruelty. This captivating story is based on a real reform school in Florida.

 

 

Flappers And Philosophers

I listened to F. Scott Fitzgerald's collection of short stories called Flappers And Philosophers. These stories were published individually in magazines before being collected into a book. The first four stories were about flappers. I noticed each flapper had long legs, blond hair and was about 19 years old. In his lifetime, Fitzgerald was known for his short stories in magazines and not for novels. The second story involves a flapper from the deep south. The story is called the Ice Palace.  She comes to Saint Paul with her fiancee to meet his family. She has never seen snow and is captivated. She wants to try all the winter sports which her fiancee reluctantly goes along with until she realizes that these sports are for kids, not young ladies. At the end of the story they visit an ice palace with a large group of friends at the end of the day. She becomes separated. Thinking the ice palace is empty, the organizers turn off all the lights. She is trapped in an ice palace thinking she will freeze to death. This is a great story. The rest of the book is about young men at the beginning of their careers full of idealistic ideas that fade away as they mature. I am so glad I found this book.

 

  

The Audition

 Katie Kitamura is the author of the award winning book called The Audition. Some people find this book to be fascinating. I found it to be confusing. The first half of the book is about an actress who lives with her husband in New York City. She walks to the theater every day to rehearse or perform. She meets a young man who is an assistant on the production. This young man thinks she is his birth mother. The actress did not ever give birth so she knows it's not true. In the second half of the book she admits she is his mother. Confusing much? This book might be too highbrow for me.

 

 

Cyan Magenta Yellow Black

Although it sounds like I am writing about a color wheel, Cyan Magenta Yellow Black is actually a book written by Kevin Fenton. The author grew up in Rollingstone and Winona, MN before moving to Saint Paul is his 20's. He wrote about a character named Duane who had a job at an ad agency. He was fired and had to sign a 12 month non-compete agreement. A year is a long time to be out of your career. As the story starts Duane is walking down Grand Avenue in Saint Paul to attend his support group. Duane is in a 12 step program. This is a fascinating story about a man putting his life back together. 

 

 

Chances Are

 I am a big fan of the author Richard Russo. I loved Empire Falls and Nobody's Fool. I also loved a book by him that I had never seen before. This one is called Chances Are. The story involves three guys who were friends in college. Now they are 66 years old and have gathered together for a weekend on Martha's Vineyard to reminisce about college days. One is a real estate broker in Arizona, one is a musician in Massachusetts, and one is a small publisher in the Midwest. The book goes back and forth in time. In one poignant chapter the three guys are together as they learn their draft numbers for the Vietnam war. Together they try to figure out what happened to their mutual friend, Jacy, who disappeared after being with them at this very house the weekend after their college graduation. The story was riveting.

 

 

BRRRRRR!

 

Creation Lake

 Rachel Kushner is the author of Creation Lake. The story is about a spy for hire. She is an American spying against the socialists in France. She takes up the identity of a woman named Sadie. Sadie is not a likeable character. All of her friendliness is a charade. She is a spy 24 hours a day and does not give a rip about the people she lives with. I don't think I have ever read a book about a less likeable character.

 

 

How The Penguins Saved Veronica

 I was walking around the library on the Navy base in Sasebo. I had about 45 minutes to spend. Unlike most libraries, this one had no newspapers to read. I picked up an interesting book called How The Penguins Saved Veronica written by Hazel Prior. I always enjoyed the book Mr. Popper's Penguins so I thought I would like this one too. At the end of the 45 minutes the book was checked out and put in the library book bag with the other book my grandchildren borrowed and I didn't see it for a week. Luckily we were going back to the library and I did have time to finish the book. This book has a sequel so I will look for that too. I enjoyed this story about a curmudgeonly grandmother named Veronica who visited the South Pole and impacted penguin research.

 

 

On My Head

Today, on my way back home after a funeral, I stopped by Como Park Observatory to breathe in some fragrant humid air and look at the plants. My first stop was in the tropical room. This is the room where you can see a sloth in a tree before the exit. I went in and walked over to the tank where three turtles were swimming. I looked up and saw three yellow birds in the tree above my head. Then I noticed the tiles below my feet were dotted with bird droppings. Before I could look up again I felt something wet land on my head. I looked at a young mother and her two year old daughter and asked, "Did I just get pooped on?" The mother couldn't see anything but when I pulled my hand through my hair I found some brown residue. Disgusting. I walked away from that exhibit and on to the next. Before I left I thought I would visit the statue at the center of the observatory and rest on a bench. As I got up to leave I recognized a woman standing at the next bench. I said hello. We used to work together 15 years ago. After that pleasant exchange I drove home to shampoo my hair. 

 

 

The Teller Of Small Fortunes

 Julie Leong is the author of The Teller Of Good Fortunes. This tale starts out with Tao who travels from city to city with her trusty mule. Tao only tells small fortunes such as it will rain next week or when the cow will calve. The book is set in the 17th century in an unnamed country. She meets a couple of men. One of them is an ex-mercenary and the other is a reformed thief. They wander together. Tao feels the need to move quickly after reading fortunes because the townsfolk might become angry with how their fortunes turned out or start demanding more important fortunes. Eventually they meet a baker and soon the four of them travel together. Tao finally has the family she has always longed for. This sweet tale was a delight to read.

 

 

Without Merit

Colleen Hoover is the author of Without Merit. This book is a coming-of-age story about Merit Voss. Merit lives in a former church with her father, step-mother, elder siblings, and six year old half brother. Her mother lives in the basement having developed agoraphobia after treatment for cancer. Merit decides to drop out of high school and no one seems to notice. She has an older (identical twin) sister who appears to have a preference to date boys who are terminally ill. She meets Sagan at a thrift store. He thinks she is Merit's older sister and he gives Merit a kiss. The plot line develops slowly at first but then takes off which makes this book a good read. 

 

 

Wayward Girls

 Wayward Girls, a novel written by Susan Wiggs and based in Buffalo, New York, is based on several true stories. The story is set in the 1960's and is about the life girls experienced at the Good Shepherd, an organization run by the Sisters Of Charity nuns. The story revolves around six teenage girls. Marin is sent to the Good Shepherd because her new step-father was going to molest her if she stayed home. Plus her mother attended an organization much like this when she was a teenager in Ireland. Angela was sent because she preferred girls over boys. Helen was the daughter of Chinese intellectuals who left her to stay there while they visited China. The Chinese government refused to let them return to pick her up. Odessa was sentenced to the Good Shepherd after a racial incident. Denise was sent for brawling in a foster home. Janice's back story was not revealed but she took great care over Kay who had an intellectual disability. This story about Good Shepherd is dark but I liked it because it emphasizes the resilience of young females.